I met Lawrence Ferlinghetti at a reading at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth, Texas, sometime around 1992. I was living in Dallas at the time, hustling as a penny-stock broker. Poetry and penny stocks made for an odd combination, but there I was. Looking back, my life has always seemed to work that way.
After his reading, Ferlinghetti stayed to sign books and answer questions. When my turn came, I asked if he might have a poem available for a small publishing project Steve Fisher and I were assembling. Without hesitation, he opened the folder he was carrying, pulled out a poem, and handed it to me.
Just like that.
No introduction required. No gatekeeper. No elaborate proposal. No discussion of contracts or credentials.
What I remember most is not the poem itself, but the generosity of the gesture.
Pure class.
The poem was “Poet as Fisherman,” and it would become the final contribution to what was then an untitled project. With Ferlinghetti’s participation, the book finally felt complete. The collection was eventually published as 4 Poets, bringing together four distinct voices in a modest edition that remains one of my favorite early publishing efforts.
Years later, Ferlinghetti included “Poet as Fisherman” in These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems 1955–1993, published by New Directions. I’m glad he did. But I’ll always remember the moment before that, when the poem existed simply as a few sheets of paper in a folder carried by one of America’s greatest poets.
4 Poets was published in an edition of 232 copies, along with 11 special copies featuring variant covers. Those special copies were never intended as a deluxe issue. They were simply experiments—different papers I was considering for the cover stock. Like many things in small-press publishing, they survived because I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.
Looking back, what stays with me most is Ferlinghetti’s kindness. A young publisher asks for a poem, and one of the giants of American poetry simply says yes.
